Editing Dick Tracy (section)

==Comic strip==
===Creation and early years===
Basing the character on U.S. federal agent [[Eliot Ness]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.atf.gov/our-history/eliot-ness |title=Eliot Ness |publisher=[[Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives]] |access-date=September 27, 2019}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=Source provides no substantiation for claimed connection to Dick Tracy. Primary source reference from Tracy creator Chester Gould needed.|date=November 2021}} Gould drafted an idea for a detective named "Plainclothes Tracy" and sent it to [[Joseph Medill Patterson]] of the [[Tribune Content Agency|Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate]]. Patterson suggested changing the hero's name to Dick Tracy, and he also put forward an opening storyline in which Tracy joined the police after his girlfriend's father was murdered by robbers. Gould agreed to these ideas, and ''Dick Tracy'' was first published on October 4, 1931. The strip was instantly popular and was soon appearing in newspapers across the United States.<ref name="bw" /> The strip's popularity also resulted in the creation of numerous ''Dick Tracy'' merchandise, including novelizations, toys, and games. In April 1937, a poll of adult comic strip readers in ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' voted ''Dick Tracy'' their third favorite comic strip after ''[[Little Orphan Annie]]'' and ''[[Popeye]]''.<ref name="bw" /> However, ''Dick Tracy'' was also attacked by some journalists as being too violent, a criticism that would dog Gould throughout his time on the strip.<ref name="bw" />

===Evolution of the strip===
{{anchor|WristRadio}}
[[File:Dick Tracy and 2-Way Wrist Radio.jpg|thumb|upright|Dick Tracy and the famous 2-Way Wrist Radio.]]

On January 13, 1946,<ref>Garyn G. Roberts, ''Dick Tracy and American Culture: Morality and Mythology, Text and Context'' (McFarland, 2003), p. 38</ref> the two-Way Wrist Radio was introduced; it would become one of the strip's most immediately recognizable icons. This radio wristwatch, worn by Tracy and members of the police force, inspired [[Martin Cooper (inventor)|Martin Cooper]]'s invention of the mobile phone and may have inspired later [[smartwatch]]es.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-dick-tracy-invented-smartwatch-180954506/ |title=How Dick Tracy Invented the Smartwatch |date=March 9, 2015 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |publisher=The Smithsonian Institution}}</ref> The two-Way Wrist Radio was upgraded to a two-Way Wrist TV in 1964.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://infostory.com/2011/01/24/the-evolution-of-dick-tracys-wristwatch/|title = The Evolution of Dick Tracy's Wristwatch|date = January 24, 2011}}</ref> This development also led to the introduction of an important supporting character, Diet Smith, an eccentric industrialist who financed the development of this equipment.

In late 1948, with the death of Joseph Patterson, the strip through several revisions with the characters: a botched security detail personally overseen by Chief Brandon allowed the villain Big Frost (A caricature of Patterson) to murder the semi-regular character Brilliant, the [[Blindness|blind]] inventor of the Two-Way Wrist Radio (among other devices) whereupon Chief Brandon, Dick Tracy's superior on the police force and a presence in the strip since 1931, resigned in shame and Pat Patton (the ''o'' in this surname has since been replaced by an ''e'') was promoted to police chief in Brandon's place on Tracy's recommendation after declining promotion himself, previously having been Tracy's buffoonish partner. A new character was introduced in December of 1948 named Sam Catchem to take Patton's place as Tracy's sidekick.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Timeline |url=https://www.dicktracymuseum.com/timeline-1 |access-date=2024-07-13 |website=The Chester Gould Dick Tracy Museum |language=en-US}}</ref>

===The 1950s===
[[File:Spike Dyke Dick Tracy.jpg|right|thumb|370px|In 1949, [[Spike Jones]] was caricatured in the ''Dick Tracy'' dailies as Spike Dyke]]

Gould introduced topical story lines about television, [[juvenile delinquency]], [[Police corruption|graft]], [[organized crime]], and other developments in American life during the 1950s; elements of [[soap opera]] depicted Dick, Tess, and Junior (along with the Tracys' baby daughter Bonnie Braids) at home as a family. Depictions of family life alternated with the story's crime drama, as in the kidnapping of Bonnie Braids by fugitive Crewy Lou, or Junior's girlfriend Model being accidentally killed by her brother.

Gould incurred some controversy when he had Tracy live in an unaccountably ostentatious manner on a police officer's salary, and he responded with a story wherein Tracy was accused of corruption and had to explain the origin of his possessions in detail. In his book-length examination of the strip, ''Dick Tracy – The Official Biography'', Jay Maeder suggested that Gould's critics were unsatisfied by his explanation. Nevertheless, the controversy eventually faded, and the cartoonist reduced exposure to Tracy's home life.

Tracy's cases generally incriminated independent operators rather than organized crime—with a few exceptions, such as [[Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice|Big Boy]], a fictionalized version of [[Al Capone]] and the strip's first villain. Tracy contended with a series of big-time mobsters in the 1950s, such as the King, George "Mr. Crime" Alpha, Odds Zonn, and Willie "The Fifth" Millyun, after events like the [[Kefauver Hearings]]. As Tess faded into the background, Tracy took, as his assistant, the rookie policewoman Lizz Worthington, a photographer who becomes a highly capable police officer, which was a rare female character type for its time.

From 1956 to 1964, the ''Dick Tracy'' Sunday page was accompanied by a [[Topper (comic strip)|topper]] humor strip called ''The Gravies'' and drawn by Gould and his assistants.

The 1950s are often considered the strip's artistic and commercial prime, which is thought to come to an end with the 1959 story with the villains The Fifth and his colleague, Flyface. In that story, The Fifth was Gould's criticism of the constitutional [[right to silence]] with the gangster invoking that right for any question, which his cohort and legal representation, Flyface, was a caricature of lawyers as a repellent man constantly swarmed by flies as was most of his family as well. In that story, Gould's creative weaknesses began to become more obvious with his vitriolic overlong condemnation of the [[rights of the accused]] and any new restraint on police practices no matter how justified, while his grotesque style for his villain characters began to alienate contemporary readers enough to prompt newspapers to drop the strip.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maeder |first1=Jay |title=Dick Tracy : the Official Biography |date=1990 |publisher=Plume |pages=183–5 }}</ref>

===Space period===
As technology progressed, the methods that Tracy and the police used to track and capture criminals took the form of increasingly fanciful [[atom]]ic-powered gadgets developed by Diet Smith Industries. This eventually led to the 1960s advent of the Space Coupe, a spacecraft with a magnetic propulsion system. This marked the beginning of the strip's "Space Period," which saw Tracy and friends having adventures on the Moon and meeting [[Moon Maid (comics)|Moon Maid]], the daughter of the leader of a race of humanoid people living in "Moon Valley" in 1964. After an eventual sharing of technological information, Moon technology became standard issue on Tracy's police force, including air cars, flying cylindrical vehicles. The villains became even more exaggerated in power, resulting in an escalating series of stories that no longer resembled the urban crime drama roots of the strip. During this period, Tracy met famed cartoonist Chet Jade, creator of the comic strip ''Sawdust'', in which the only characters are talking dots.

One of the new characters, Mr. Intro, was only manifested as a disembodied voice. His goal was world domination in the vein of a [[James Bond]] villain. Tracy eventually used an atomic laser beam to annihilate Intro and his island base.

Junior married Moon Maid in October 1964. Their daughter Honey Moon Tracy had antennae and magnetic hands. In the spring of 1969, Tracy was offered the post of Chief of Police in Moon Valley. However, he ended up back on Earth when the [[Apollo 11]] mission in 1969 showed that the moon was barren of all life. Many of the accoutrements of the space period stories remained for many years afterward, such as the Space Coupe and much of the high-tech gadgetry. Moon Maid receded from the storyline.

The stories of this period took an increasingly condemnatory tone pertaining to contemporary court decisions concerning the [[rights of the accused]], which often involved Tracy being frustrated by legal technicalities. For example, having caught a gang of diamond thieves red-handed, Tracy was forced to let them walk because he could not ''prove'' beyond a reasonable doubt that the diamonds were stolen. As he saw the thieves get off without penalty, Tracy was heard to grumble, "Yes, under today's interpretation of the laws, it seems it's the police who are handcuffed!"

The strip was criticized for advocating violence. For instance, Moon Maid, incensed at a woman being attacked by a criminal and no one helping her in an obvious reference of the [[Murder of Kitty Genovese]], becomes a mysterious murderous vigilante to Dick Tracy's open approval in violation of his profession's ethics<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maeder |first1=Jay |pages=194–5 }}</ref> In 1968. On June 7 — the day after Senator [[Robert F. Kennedy]] was killed by an assassin — the strip's final panel announced, "Violence is golden, when it's used to put down evil." The strip was obviously prepared weeks before the assassination, but the timing of the strip's publication attracted negative attention. Some newspapers dropped the strip as a result.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wells |first1=John |title=American Comic Book Chronicles: 1965-1969 |date=2014 |publisher=TwoMorrows Publishing |isbn=978-1605490557 |page=221}}</ref> From 1960 to 1974, the strip's newspaper coverage dropped from 550 to roughly 375<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maeder |page=198 }}</ref>

===1970s===
[[File:Tracydickmarch870.jpg|thumb|400px|Color guide for ''Dick Tracy'' (March 8, 1970)]]
In the 1970s, Gould modernized Tracy by giving him a longer hairstyle and a [[mustache]] and added a [[hippie]] [[sidekick]], Groovy Grove, to appeal to young audiences. Groovy's first appearance in print, as it happened, occurred during the same week as the [[Kent State shootings]]. Groovy remained with the strip on and off until his death in 1984.

Shortly before his retirement, Gould drew a strip in which Sam, Lizz, and Groovy held Tracy down to shave off his mustache.

At this time, the standard publication size and space of newspaper comics was sharply reduced; for example, the ''Dick Tracy'' [[Sunday strip]], which had traditionally been a full-page episode containing 12 panels, was cut in size to a half-page format that offered, at most, eight panels—these new restrictions created challenges for all comic artists.

===Plenty family===
The Plenty family was a group of goofy [[Redneck (stereotype)|redneck]] yokels headed by the former villain Bob Oscar ("B.O."), along with Gertrude ("Gravel Gertie") Plenty. Gravel Gertie was introduced as the unwitting dupe of the villain the Brow, who was on the run from Dick Tracy. The family provided a humorous counterpoint to Tracy's adventures. The Plenty sub-story was decades long and saw Sparkle Plenty grow from an infant to a young married lady, eventually becoming a beautiful fashion model. Sparkle Plenty's 30 May 1947 birth became a significant mainstream media event, with spinoff merchandising and magazine coverage.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://cartoonician.com/big-deals-comics-highest-profile-moments/ |title="Big Deals: Comics' Highest-Profile Moments," ''Hogan's Alley'' #17, 1999 |access-date=January 15, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130630083743/http://cartoonician.com/big-deals-comics-highest-profile-moments/ |archive-date=June 30, 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Plenty family appeared with Tracy in a story that occurred in a bank, where "B.O." found a way to prevent thieves from snatching an envelope of money from a counter.

In the 24 April 2011 strip, B.O. and Gertie had a second child, Attitude,<ref>[http://www.gocomics.com/dicktracy/2011/04/24 Dick Tracy comic strip] (via GoComics), April 24, 2011. Retrieved October 8, 2012.</ref> a boy who is as ugly as Sparkle is beautiful. His face has yet to be shown.

===Crimestoppers' Textbook===
Beginning September 11, 1949, the Sunday strip included a frame devoted to a page from the "Crimestoppers' Textbook", a series of handy illustrated hints for the amateur crime-fighter.<ref name=Holtz>{{cite book |last1=Holtz |first1=Allan |title=American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide |date=2012 |publisher=The University of Michigan Press |location=Ann Arbor |isbn=9780472117567 |page=115}}</ref> This was named after a short-lived youth group seen in the strip during the late 1940s, led by Junior Tracy, called "Dick Tracy's Crimestoppers." This feature ended when Gould retired from the strip in 1977, but Max Allan Collins reinstated it, and it is still part of the strip. After Gould's retirement, Collins initially replaced the Textbook with "Dick Tracy's Rogues Gallery," a salute to memorable ''Tracy'' villains of the past.

===After Gould===
{{unreferenced|section|date=August 2024}}
Chester Gould retired from comics in 1977; his last ''Dick Tracy'' strip appeared in print on Sunday, December 25 (Christmas Day) of that same year. The following Monday, ''Dick Tracy'' was taken over by [[Max Allan Collins]] and longtime Gould assistant [[Rick Fletcher]]. Gould's name remained in the byline for a few years after his retirement as a story consultant.

In one of Collins' first stories as the strip's writer, the gangster known as [[Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice|"Big Boy"]] learned that he was dying and had less than a year to live. Big Boy was still seeking revenge on Tracy, who had sent him up the river to prison, and he wanted to live just long enough to see Tracy's death. He put out an open $1 million contract on Tracy, knowing that every small-time hood in the city would take a crack at the famous cop for that amount of money. One of the would-be collectors rigged Tracy's car to explode, but inadvertently killed Moon Maid instead of Tracy in the explosion. A funeral strip for Moon Maid explicitly stated that this officially severed all ties between Earth and the Moon in the strip,<ref>''Dick Tracy'', 13 August 1978. Strip reprinted in ''Dick Tracy – The Official Biography'' by Jay Maeder, 1990 (color plate #12).</ref> thus eliminating the last remnants of the Space Period. Honeymoon received a new hairstyle that covered her antennae and she was ultimately phased out of the strip. Junior later married Sparkle Plenty (the daughter of B.O. and 'Gravel' Gertie Plenty), and they had a daughter named Sparkle Plenty Jr. Sparkle had been divorced by her cartoonist husband Vera Aldid, who was thus also removed from the cast. Collins felt that their original marriages were a mistake on Gould's part. In the 1990s, Tracy's son Joseph Flintheart Tracy took on a role similar to Junior's in the earlier strips.

In addition, Collins removed other Gould creations of the 1960s and 1970s (including Groovy Grove, who was gravely wounded in the line of duty and later died in the hospital; Lizz married him before his death). On a more philosophical level, Collins took a generally less cynical view of the [[justice system]] than Gould; Tracy came to accept its limitations and requirements as a normal part of the process which he could manage. Extreme technology was phased out, such as the Space Coupe, in favor of more realistic advanced tools such as the Two-Way Wrist Computer in 1987.

New semi-regular characters introduced by Collins and Fletcher included: Dr. Will Carver, a [[Plastic surgery|plastic surgeon]] with underworld ties who often worked on known felons; Wendy Wichel, a smarmy newspaper reporter/editorialist with a strong anti-Tracy bias in her articles; and Lee Ebony, an African-American female detective. Vitamin Flintheart reappeared occasionally as a comic-relief figure, the aged ham actor created by Gould in 1944 who had not been seen in the strip for almost three decades. The Plenty family (B.O., Gravel Gertie, and Sparkle) were also brought back as semi-regulars.

Original villains seen during this period included Angeltop (the revenge-seeking, [[psychopathic]] daughter of the slain Flattop), Torcher (whose scheme was arson-for-profit), and Splitscreen (a video pirate). Collins brought back at least one "classic" Gould villain or revenge-seeking family member per year. The revived Gould villains were often provided with full names and marriages, as well as children, and other family connections were developed, bringing more humanity to many of the originally grotesque brutes. "Flattop", particularly, had a number of relatives, all with his characteristic head structure and facial attributes, who turned up one by one to avenge their ancestor on Tracy.

Rick Fletcher died in 1983 and was succeeded by editorial cartoonist [[Dick Locher]], who had assisted Gould on the strip in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Locher was assisted by his son John, who died in 1986.

Max Allan Collins was fired from the strip in 1992, following a financial reorganization of their comic strip holdings, and ''Tribune'' staff writer and columnist [[Mike Kilian]] took over the writing. Kilian continued until his death on October 27, 2005.

=== 2000s ===
Dick Locher was both author and artist for over three years, beginning on January 9, 2006. On March 16, 2009, Jim Brozman began collaborating with Locher, taking over the drawing duties while Locher continued to write the strip.<ref>[http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2009/03/17/jim-brozman-working-with-locher-on-dick-tracy/ Jim Brozman working with Locher on Dick Tracy The Daily Cartoonist]</ref>

In 2005, Tracy was a guest at Blondie and Dagwood's 75th anniversary party in the comic strip ''[[Blondie (comic strip)|Blondie]]''. Later, Dick Tracy appeared in the comic strip ''[[Gasoline Alley (comic strip)|Gasoline Alley]]''.

On January 19, 2011, [[Tribune Media Services]] announced that Locher was retiring from the strip and handing the reins to artist [[Joe Staton]] and writer [[Mike Curtis (writer)|Mike Curtis]].<ref>[http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2011/01/dick-locher-passes-tms-dick-tracy-to-new-artist-writer.html Chicago Tribune: Dick Locher passes 'Dick Tracy' to new artist, writer]  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111025142512/http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2011/01/dick-locher-passes-tms-dick-tracy-to-new-artist-writer.html |date=October 25, 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Rosenthal |first=Phil |author-link=Phil Rosenthal |title=Dick Locher passes TMS' 'Dick Tracy' to new artist, writer |work=Tower Ticker |publisher=[[Chicago Tribune]] |date=January 19, 2011 |url=http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2011/01/dick-locher-passes-tms-dick-tracy-to-new-artist-writer.html |access-date=January 16, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111025142512/http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2011/01/dick-locher-passes-tms-dick-tracy-to-new-artist-writer.html |archive-date=October 25, 2011 |url-status=dead |df=mdy }}</ref> The new creative team has previously worked together on ''[[Scooby-Doo]]'', ''[[Richie Rich (comics)|Richie Rich]]'', and'' [[Casper the Friendly Ghost]]''.<ref>[http://www.tcj.com/blog/dick-locher-hangs-up-his-fedora/ The Comics Journal: Dick Locher Hangs Up His Fedora]</ref> Their first Dick Tracy strip was published March 14, 2011. Until Staton's retirement in October 2021, Staton and Curtis were assisted by Shelley Pleger, who inked and lettered Staton's drawings, along with Shane Fisher, who provides the coloring on the Sunday strips.  After Staton's retirement, Pleger took over his artist duties, too, having previously substituted for him in 2017.<ref>{{cite web| publisher=[[Daily Cartoonist]]| title=Shelley Pleger now Dick Tracy art squad| author=Degg, D. D.| date=October 24, 2021| url=https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2021/10/24/shelley-pleger-now-dick-tracy-major-art-squad/| accessdate=2022-07-31}}</ref> Pleger was in turn succeeded by Charles Ettinger in February 2024. Chicago-area police sergeant Jim Doherty provided "Crimestopper" captions for the Sunday strips and acted as the feature's [[technical advisor]].  Doherty also introduced a new feature, "Tracy's Hall of Fame" (which replaces the "Crimestopper" panel approximately once each month), in which a real-life police officer is profiled and honored. Doherty was replaced in 2016 by police lieutenant Walter Reimer, who introduced the "First Responders Roll of Honor", which honors real-life police officers, firefighters, and paramedics who died on duty.

Staton and Curtis reintroduced many of the characters of the ‘40s through the ‘60s, including a second Mr. Crime and a reformed Mole, while introducing more deformed and grotesque villains such as Abner Kadaver, Panda, and the Jumbler. They also brought back all the gadgets and plot elements of the 1960s space era, starting in early 2013, although the reintroduced Moon Maid is not the same as the original; rather, she is a human genetically modified to resemble the original Moon Maid and, thus, is christened Mysta Chimera and placed under Diet Smith's care. They have also done crossovers, with cameos from ''[[Popeye]]'', ''[[Brenda Starr, Reporter]]'', ''[[Funky Winkerbean]]'',<ref>[http://comicsalliance.com/dick-tracy-funky-winterbean-crossove/ 'Funky Winkerbean' And 'Dick Tracy' Are Crossing Over]</ref> ''[[Fearless Fosdick]]'',<ref>[http://www.newsarama.com/29917-dick-tracy-meets-his-hillbilly-match-in-unique-comic-strip-crossover.htmlDICK TRACY Meets His Hillbilly Match In Unique Comic Strip Crossover]{{Dead link|date=July 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> ''[[Spirit (comics character)|The Spirit]]'',<ref>[http://comicsalliance.com/dick-tracy-spirit-crossover/ 'Dick Tracy' Is Hanging Out With The Spirit (And More)],</ref> ''[[The Green Hornet]]'',<ref>[http://dicktracy.info/2018-dick-tracy-green-hornet-crossover/ 2018 Dick Tracy / Green Hornet Crossover!] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180529130216/http://dicktracy.info/2018-dick-tracy-green-hornet-crossover/ |date=May 29, 2018 }},</ref> ''[[For Better or For Worse]]'', ''[[Friday Foster]]'', and several long sequences involving ''[[Little Orphan Annie]]''.